All Things Habitat - Lets talk.....

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Land Tour

Tip of the day from Foggy. He has 2 sets of clothes with XX inside them he bathed in permithrin. He reported zero ticks. I picked a bunch. Either his plan works or his blood is worn out and of no interest to 8 legged parasites.

May have to get some of that clothes wash.
 
Tip of the day from Foggy. He has 2 sets of clothes with XX inside them he bathed in permithrin. He reported zero ticks. I picked a bunch. Either his plan works or his blood is worn out and of no interest to 8 legged parasites.

May have to get some of that clothes wash.
Thanks for coming out guys. Great way to spend a nice summer day. Can't wait to try some of the ideas for the food plot (with Stu's help).
 
Thanks for coming out guys. Great way to spend a nice summer day. Can't wait to try some of the ideas for the food plot (with Stu's help).

lets hear them!
 
thanks to Bob and Stu. I really enjoyed it.
 
Stu.jpg I was talking to Brooks and your land tour came up. Sounds like it was a good one.

Anyway, he asked what exactly I meant when I commented about the potential food plot right behind the neighbor's house. In a nutshell, his interpretation of what I was trying to suggest was nuts on:
Use the neighbors for 0 impact access (walk their NE side in on any N or E winds, walk their SW side on S or W winds, both blowing the scent into their property...Shown as thin red line)
Put the food plot in that little opening to the NW of their property line (shown in light green)
Put a screen along their property line (shown in dark green)
On the NW end of that new food plot, starting about 20 yards back in the woods, run a blockade almost all the way to the swamp (stop it with 10ish yards of dry land left...Shown as black line).
Edge feather/blockage/screen most of 2 sides of the plot, forcing deer to enter mainly by your 2 stands and giving safer winds.
Now, both stands are covering both feeding on the plot and the pinch between the plot and the end of the blockade, to catch cruising bucks that don't want to enter the plot

At the same time, you have a high impact, but deadly all day type sit on the other end of the blockade. After all, every deer cruising your property will either go through by your food plot or at the other end of your funnel. I'd just suggest that you never hunt that deep stand more than twice a season and wouldn't ever hunt it at all unless you just can't get it done from a lower impact stand. When "forced" to hunt it, only do so on prime weather days, go in well before first light and sit until you kill or after dark.

Now, here's where working off of a crappy (no offense) quality photo fails. I can't tell if deer are cutting between the small and big swamp. That's why I have 2 stands there. If they are doing that a lot, run the blockade across the little swamp and stop it where the deepest red dot is and put a stand there instead of where the first dot is.

As always with such limited info, take all that w a grain of salt, but Brooks made it sound like the conditions would make it work. If it did, WOW, that'd be my favorite layout on the place that I can see...Talk about low impact (for the plot stands), high odds. That's pretty much the definition of that.
 
P.S. Sorry the quality is so bad, but that's all I had to work with...Hopefully, I makes sense.
 
N.P. Stu. Particularly after talking to Brooks, I REALLY like that setup. The only catch is that you have to trust the neighbors not to trespass. If you slapped a 3rd stand at the other corner, it wouldn't be as good as the other 2 plot stands I put on the map, but you could hunt that plot every single afternoon of season and never have the deer aware they were being hunted, as long as you were careful.
 
View attachment 1220 I was talking to Brooks and your land tour came up. Sounds like it was a good one.

Anyway, he asked what exactly I meant when I commented about the potential food plot right behind the neighbor's house. In a nutshell, his interpretation of what I was trying to suggest was nuts on:
Use the neighbors for 0 impact access (walk their NE side in on any N or E winds, walk their SW side on S or W winds, both blowing the scent into their property...Shown as thin red line)
Put the food plot in that little opening to the NW of their property line (shown in light green)
Put a screen along their property line (shown in dark green)
On the NW end of that new food plot, starting about 20 yards back in the woods, run a blockade almost all the way to the swamp (stop it with 10ish yards of dry land left...Shown as black line).
Edge feather/blockage/screen most of 2 sides of the plot, forcing deer to enter mainly by your 2 stands and giving safer winds.
Now, both stands are covering both feeding on the plot and the pinch between the plot and the end of the blockade, to catch cruising bucks that don't want to enter the plot

At the same time, you have a high impact, but deadly all day type sit on the other end of the blockade. After all, every deer cruising your property will either go through by your food plot or at the other end of your funnel. I'd just suggest that you never hunt that deep stand more than twice a season and wouldn't ever hunt it at all unless you just can't get it done from a lower impact stand. When "forced" to hunt it, only do so on prime weather days, go in well before first light and sit until you kill or after dark.

Now, here's where working off of a crappy (no offense) quality photo fails. I can't tell if deer are cutting between the small and big swamp. That's why I have 2 stands there. If they are doing that a lot, run the blockade across the little swamp and stop it where the deepest red dot is and put a stand there instead of where the first dot is.

As always with such limited info, take all that w a grain of salt, but Brooks made it sound like the conditions would make it work. If it did, WOW, that'd be my favorite layout on the place that I can see...Talk about low impact (for the plot stands), high odds. That's pretty much the definition of that.


Steve, thank you for the comments. Those of us who saw the setup can apply your ideas to our own properties.
 
Stu-someday I would like to see what you have done with that pinch point.
 
I bet 50% of the time, pinch points I have set up don't get used by large bucks. They will walk around them, even some fairly open ground to avoid obvious pinch points. Other large bucks will walk right down the chute like it was planed. Go Figure.
 
It will interesting to see what happens with this one. I have no doubt that many deer will "follow the plan" and do exactly what a guy would think they'd do. I have concerns that truly mature bucks will simply use the tamarack/tag alder/cattail marsh to the west instead.

If it is too close they will.
 
I like the set up stu is doing for early and late seasons on bucks when they are bed to food just like any deer, other end of that blockade should narrow down where mature bucks cruise during the rut
 
That is one of the problems with trying to set things up to work. Seems like A guy never gets enough land to create full control. I run into it all the time when buying and selling these hunting properties.
 
Heck...I'm just trying to up my odds a bit :)

I'm pretty sure this set up will be a good one for picking off a 2.5 most every year....since I can't seem to keep the 2.5-3.5 year old's from year to year, I may just start targeting the 2.5's

Thats throwing the towel in a little early, it may turn out better than you think.
 
3 years is early? The pattern of them not showing up from year to year has been consistent since the first year. We'll see what the cams show next year, if the pattern has changed...then I'll stick with my current (unsuccessful) plan of targeting 3.5's and up. Be nice to get some venison one of these years

I will be honest Stu, odds are stacked against us right now in MN. So I understand. But it has been 3 years of work in Missouri on one farm before I could finally see a pattern that was working. It just takes time for the deer to train themselves!
 
^^^yup...a guy can dream, but at some point you also have to deal with reality. We'll see what this year of Hunter Choice and what is shaping up as being a much more mild winter does for the local deer. I was planning to start feeding soon, but not really sure it is of any value right now.

I just finished combining the last of the corn I wanted to get in yesterday. Field was full of tracks and cleaned off cobs. My dryer site is being attacked by up to 10 deer a night eating every spilled kernel. Seems they are lacking something right now, or are just getting lazy early this year.
 
With the now melt, the deer have moved out of my foodplot to some extent. I hope the doe we passed made it through the mzzle season.
 
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